


Because of That Dirtbag Alley Cat

by Addleton



Series: Your Yellow Stripe Has Always Tempted Me [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Capture the Flag, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slow Build, sargington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-10 01:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6933049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Addleton/pseuds/Addleton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after Carolina and Epsilon leave to bring down the Director, two team leaders discuss how to deal with Caboose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because of That Dirtbag Alley Cat

Blue Base was on fire. Again. For the third time that hour.

Sarge was just wrapping up the preparations for another celebration of Blue misfortune when a flaming crate of machine parts came flying across the canyon and smacked dab-in-the-middle of Doc and Donut’s hut. Which caught fire. Which set Red Base on fire because the hut stood in direct violation of every fire safety code in existence, and the two structures shared a wall.

The evacuation of both facilities was swift and scream-filled.

Once the fires had been put out, Donut loudly lamenting the smoke damage to his lacy decor all the while, Sarge stomped on over to Blue Base, intending to berate the Blues about dragging the Reds into Blue Team problems. Again.

Midway, he found Agent Washington beating a flaming bush into charred submission with a blanket.

“Son,” he said, boots leaving imprints in the ground as he stomped to a halt, “we need to have a talk.”

“Not now, Sarge!” Washington’s voice was strained, and Sarge recognized the harried tone of a man about to snap. “I need to put out all the fires and then figure out how to stop Caboose from igniting anything _else!_ ”

Sarge crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s what we need to talk about.”

“Then talk! If you’re not going to help me put out the fires, the least you could do is _get to the point!_ ”

Sarge harrumphed and pulled out his collapsible shovel. He tossed dirt onto the smoldering plant, putting it out for good. Washington immediately ran off to flap his wet blanket at some blazing debris, and Sarge followed.

“You need to get Caboose under control,” Sarge said in between tossing clumps of dirt at what once was an axle.

“I know!” snarled Washington.

“You can’t leave him alone.”

“I haven’t!”

“And you can’t let him get bored.”

“Tell me something _I don’t already know!_ ”

Sarge paused and thought back to when Caboose first arrived at Blood Gulch. “He wasn’t always like this, you know. Donut tells me he used to be a pretty great guy before O’Malley came along.”

“Who?” asked Washington as he smothered a burning case of Twinkies before dashing off to suffocate a blazing bag of balloons.

“O’Malley,” said Sarge, following off to the side and tossing dirt onto a box of condoms. When he got no response from Washington, he continued by clarifying, “Megalomaniac. B-movie laugh? Liked to call people ‘fools’? Tex’s crazy AI!”

“Tex’s—” Hallelujah, recognition! “You’re telling me Caboose had _OMEGA?_ ”

“Yep. We all did. Except for Tucker.”

Washington paused in his blanket-waving and tilted his head towards Sarge. “How long did he have Omega for?”

“Weeks, at least,” Sarge said, still putting out fires unlike his easily-distracted Blue counterpart—a fatal flaw if he ever saw one. “Donut was devastated when Caboose stopped making references to Broadway. He cried for days thinking Caboose didn’t want to be friends anymore! Even after O’Malley left, Caboose was never the same.”

Washington’s fingers clenched the blanket. “Was anyone else affected?”

“Of course we were! Simmons had his daddy issues brought to the forefront! Grif randomly falls asleep! Donut started lacing the base! With frills,” he quickly clarified upon seeing Washington freeze up. “Not explosives. Or drugs. D.A.R.E. in these parts stands for ‘Donut’s Anti-drug Rampage Endures.’ It never ends.”

“And what about you, Sarge?”

“Eh.” Sarge shrugged and OHKOed the the last of the burning plants with the flat of his shovel. “All my plans now contain countless convolutions and 300% more robot, which is actually an improvement in my opinion!”

“How is that an improvement?”

“Because it keeps everybody clueless about my actual intentions! Obfuscates my operations! Bewilders all my battles!”

“And that's a good thing... _how?_ ”

“It's simple! If your allies can’t tell what you're going to do, then there's no one to rat your plans out to the enemy! And if no one rats your plans out to the enemy, then the enemy can't predict your movements! And if they can't predict your movements, they can't protect themselves from you!”

“That actually works?!”

“Wouldn’t be here if it didn’t.”

“That... explains a lot.” Washington twisted the blanket in his hands as he kicked clods of dirt over a magazine, the contents charred beyond recognition; Sarge suspected it had once been a nudie mag. “Is O’Malley why Caboose killed Church the first time?”

“Nah. He was always a team-killing bluetard. Command even had a shortcut dedicated to his team kills: Ctrl + F + U.”

“I thought that was a joke.”

“Son, when it comes to Caboose, nothing is a joke. Best remember that.”

Washington was quiet as he drowned the last bit of burning debris in a flood of damp blanket. He stomped on the fabric for good measure before turning to Red Team’s illustrious leader, cobalt arms crossed over his chest. “Well then, Sarge, in your expert opinion—” To Sarge's surprise, there was no trace of sarcasm in that phrase. “—how should we deal with Caboose?”

“That’s simple!” Sarge replied, pleased that at least _someone_ in the canyon who wasn’t a chronic asskisser appreciated his superior knowledge and experience. “He’s upset because his best friend left. Again. After going on a mean-spirited tirade the likes of which no friend should ever go on.”

“Sarge…”

“The point being, Caboose is feeling mighty friendless right now, so unless someone starts being friendly with him, he’s liable to keep on feeling friendless. Normally, Donut would do the friendly thing, but he’s preoccupied right now. Happens when your house burns down. And it’s a Blue Team problem anyway! It’s high time you Smurfs learned how to handle your own problems _without_ dragging Red Team into them!”

“I’ve been told that’s a sacred Blue Team tradition.”

Sarge scoffed. “It can’t be a more sacred tradition than humiliating your enemies in Capture the Flag!”

“Oh?”

“As a matter of fact, Capture the Flag was how Caboose and Donut met in the first place! Talking about it is a surefire way of cheering either of them up. Or so I heard. Never done it myself. Or put anyone up to it, for that matter.”

“It sounds like it’s worth a try, in any case.”

“Dibs on the credit if it works!”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Dibs on the best view when the fireworks start.”

A muffled explosion echoed through the canyon shortly followed by the shouting of an aqua-clad marine.

“I should… go… deal with that.”

“You think?”

Agent Washington halted mid-turn before turning back to face his Red counterpart. “Thanks, Sarge.”

Sarge harrumphed. “Don’t go thanking me just yet.”

Before Washington could get any sappier, there was another explosion, and the Agent ran back to base shouting for Caboose to stop touching things.

Sarge wished the man luck and headed back to Red Base, mission accomplished.

* * *

An hour later, Sarge was glaring up at where Agent Washington stood atop Blue Base, the glorious Red flag in hand. Tucker stood next to him, making lewd gestures and comments.

Sarge was forced to admit that his Blue counterpart’s plan had been a specimen of tactical perfection: sending Caboose to steal the flag alone had been the first stroke of strategic genius, especially when the bluetard got distracted with helping Donut and Doc rebuild their hut. Sending Tucker to retrieve the wayward soldier had been the second genius stroke: everyone knew Tucker was the designated babysitter, and of course Grif couldn’t resist slacking off by bitching about unwanted responsibilities, while Simmons, being the dutiful soldier he was, had to stick around to keep an eye on the orange eyesore.

Of course, this meant that nothing was getting done around Red Base, which meant that Sarge had had to go yell at everyone to get their thumbs out of their asses and get back to work, a process inevitably dragged out by Grif, even after the shotgun came out, and by the time Sarge got back inside the base, the flag was long gone.

“So, Sarge—” The Red leader could hear the self-satisfied smirk in Washington’s voice. “—do you still want dibs on that credit?”

“Only if it gets me my flag back.”

Washington tilted his helmet towards his teammate. “What do you think, Tucker?”

“I think it’ll take more than that.”

“Well, Sarge—” He could hear the barely-suppressed laughter in the Agent’s voice. “—you heard the man.”

“What else you got?”

Sarge didn’t expect a favorable response when he suggested, “Caboose.” He was not disappointed.

Tucker snorted. “You can keep him.”

“Tucker…”

“Oh, come on, Wash!” The aqua marine turned his full attention towards the Agent; Washington, to his credit, kept the majority of his focus on Sarge, not that it made any difference. “The whole point of this was to get Caboose to have fun. He’s having fun. Do you really want to pull him away from his fun? Right now?”

Washington sighed.

“Thought not. Could you even _imagine_ the whining? Uh, no thanks.”

Sarge noted the exact moment Washington tuned Tucker out. “Do you have anything else?” the Blue leader asked, interrupting his teammate’s chatter.

Sarge had come prepared. Once he saw the missing flag, he’d run through his mental Red Base inventory and selected the least useful yet somewhat desirable item he could think of. That Grif would miss it was just an added bonus.

He held it up for the Blues to see.

“Is that—?”

“Yep.”

“Did Donut—?”

“Yep.”

“We’ll take it!” said Tucker.

“In addition to you taking the full verbal credit for giving me the idea to to play Capture the Flag.” Washington waved the flag like a carrot-on-a-stick, with Sarge the very hungry horse.

The Red leader sighed, his shoulders slumping to exaggerated effect. He made a show of grumbling and rallying himself before shouting up to the Blues, “I would like everyone present to know that I take full credit for giving Agent Washington, leader of Blue Team, the enemies of Red Team, the brilliant plan of playing Capture the Flag in order to help one of his men. Who is also an enemy. Because he’s a Blue. I would also like everyone present to note that you wouldn’t have come up with the plan without me! Not without setting the entire canyon ablaze first! If not the entire planet! I only did it to save Red Base.”

Tucker giggled. “Wow! Sarge actually admitting he helped Blue Team. Could I get that in writing?”

Sarge cocked his shotgun. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Besides,” said Washington, “I recorded it.”

“And saved!”

“Now give me my flag back!”

“After you!” sang Tucker, gesturing towards the banana bread.

One exchange later, with flag in hand and suitably humiliated, Sarge headed back to Red Base, grumbling to himself about devious Blues, flattery, and never again falling for yellow-striped wiles. He felt better when his plan came into full fruition, the shout of Blue disappointment filling his heart with vicious joy.

“Fuck! It’s stale!”

“I told you not to eat it, Tucker. You have no idea where it’s been.”

Sarge knew though, and the answer was as disgusting as it was orange. He chuckled to himself, already imagining the look on Tucker’s face at the reveal when the Blues came to retrieve their flag.

His prospective amusement promptly transmuted into raging disappointment as he heard the screams of his men emanating from Blue Base.

What then followed was the most one-sided game of Capture the Flag Sarge had ever had the displeasure of participating in.

**Author's Note:**

> This is set between “Change of Plans” and “Reckless”, in case it wasn’t clear from context.
> 
> Concrit is welcome, as always.


End file.
